Assassin’s Creed DNA Testing Bundle

The movie Assassin’s Creed from 20th Century Fox will be released in theaters December 21st. It is loosely based on the video game franchise of the same name. The movie’s main character travels into the past to discover that his genetic ancestor was part of a mysterious secret organization, the Assassin’s, in 15th century Spain.

20th Century Fox and Family Tree DNA have partnered to create the Assassin’s Creed DNA Testing Bundle and the Assassin’s Creed Sweepstakes.

The Assassin’s Creed DNA Testing Bundle contains a test for Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder Test and the Warrior Gene DNA test.

The Warrior Gene test determines whether a person carries the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) gene variant, known as the “Warrior Gene.” This gene may cause certain carriers to engage in more risk-taking behaviors and be able to better assess their chances of success in critical situations.

The bundle also includes a free one-month premium subscription to Findmypast.

The Assassin’s Creed Sweepstakes will award someone a trip for two to Las Vegas for an Assassin’s Creed-themed adventure. Some of the activities will include a master parkour class (getting through an obstacle course), nighttime zip lining and an electrifying sky jump from the tallest tower in the city. This is the Grand Prize.

New indexed record collection
Germany Bavaria Nuremberg Civil Registration 1803-1886
There are over 1.2 million records in this collection. The records provide details of births, marriages and deaths in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, between 1803 and 1886. And the records may also provide information about other family members and their religion.

These collections are new indexed record collections with images
Maine World War I Draft Registration Index 1917-1919
Oregon Deaths 1877-1952

FamilySearch Computerized Indexing

FamilySearch has started adding records that have been indexed by a computer. These records are for the collection GenealogyBank Obituaries 1980 – 2014. There will be a message that tells you if the record was indexed by a computer when you view the data.

If you find that the computer made an error, you can click the Errors button and someone will look into it and make any needed corrections.

Geneanet Adds Dutch and Austrian Records

Geneanet has added Dutch and Austrian records to its website. Geneanet is a subscription website based in France. It has lots of information for European records and worldwide family trees.

There are over 8 million Dutch records that have been added. This new collection includes:
– Netherlands, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1910
– Netherlands, Marriages, 1565-1892
– Netherlands, Deaths and Burials, 1668-1945

There are over 100,000 Austrian records that have been added. This new collection includes:
– Austria, Births and Baptisms, 1651-1940
– Austria, Marriages, 1722-1898
– Austria, Burials, 1768-1918:

Ancestry Releases UK Military Collections

Ancestry has released some new indexes to UK military collections. These collections are from The National Archives in Kew, London. The images are available with a subscription to Fold3. The collections are

UK, Military Deserters, 1812-1927
UK, Royal Air Force Muster Roll, 1918
Naval and Military Courts Martial Registers, 1806-1930
British Army Lists, 1882-1962

Ancestry has also released some new UK and Ireland military pensioner records. Those collections are

New App from Ancestry – We’re Related

Ancestry has released a new app called We’re Related. It’s available on iOS and Android.

The app helps you discover if your friends or celebrities are related to you. It’s meant to get the next generation involved in family history.

You don’t need an Ancestry account to use the app. You login using Facebook. It will use Facebook to find your friends and family. A family member will need to have an Ancestry tree in order to make the connections for who you could be related to. If you have an Ancestry account, you login and the app will use your Ancestry tree. You don’t have to login with Facebook if you have an Ancestry account.

The app is not meant to be a research tool. It’s used to get your family engaged in family history.

It uses the user created trees on Ancestry and many know how inaccurate those trees are with no supporting documentation. The celebrity trees were created by professional genealogists who work at Ancestry.

Many have found errors in the celebrity trees. Crista Cowen, who works for Ancestry, said it was a stitching error. You can click a thumbs down button and it will be placed in a queue for review.

Randy Seaver, who has the Genea-Musings blog, has been using the app and it has him related to many famous people and some of this Facebok friends. Here is what he has to say about it

“All of this could be great fun IF the relationships are correct. I believe my lines back in time are accurate because I have records and sources, but I can’t tell if the other person’s lines are accurate because no sources are provided. There are no links to online family trees for the famous persons, or for the Facebook friends.”

Randy asked about the accuracy of the app on Ancestry’s Facebook group. Here is a reply he received:

“We hope that the app will help you make some interesting family discoveries, but please note that the results are based on user-provided family trees. Ancestry does not guarantee the accuracy of the possible connections. They are intended as a starting point for your own genealogical research.”

DNA Matching at MyHeritage

MyHeritage’s DNA Matching feature is now out of beta. In September this new feature was released as beta.

DNA Matching is where MyHeritage users can upload their DNA results from testing companies 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and Family Tree DNA. The DNA is then compared to other MyHeritage users who have uploaded their DNA to find matches.

During the beta mode there were many false positives and feedback from the community about missing features and functionality.

MyHeritage was able to increase the accuracy of the matches and get rid of the false positives. They were also able to increase the speed for processing matches. Matches are calculated every week and will be calculated daily starting next week.

All matches have been re-calculated. If you had communicated with a false positive match or any bad matches during the beta mode, those have not been removed from your account.

You can now search your DNA matches by a person’s name or country.

They have added pagination so the matches are broken up into pages instead of an endless scroll.

Features that will be coming soon include the ability to add notes to your matches and display ancestral surnames for each DNA match.

New Records at Findmypast

Findmypast has begun to add Canadian records to its site. They have added the Ontario Birth Index 1860 – 1920 and the New Brunswick Birth and Baptism Index 1769 – 1899. And they have added the Canada Census for 1901.

Another Scottish collection that has records added to it is called the Scotland Registers & Records. The new additions are the Written Histories of the Highland Clans & Highland Regiments.

Some English records that have been added include browsable access to Surrey monumental inscriptions. There are 32 volumes that contain monumental inscriptions from thousands of gravestones and memorials across Surrey.

They’ve added lots more Irish records. Over 48,000 records have been added to the Easter Rising & Ireland Under Martial Law 1916-1921 collection.

Another Irish collection, Ireland, Histories & Reference Guides, will help you learn more about the history of your ancestral homeland.

You can browse the Ireland Roman Catholic Parish Registers and the Easter Rising & Ireland Under Martial Law 1916-1921 collection.

The Cavan Registers & Records contains only one title called Crosserlough Census Index 1821. The original census was destroyed by fire. This index was stored in a courthouse that did not burn down.

The Kilkenny Registers & Records contains an index for the Castlecmer census of 1901.

Wicklow registers & records contains school registers, lists of corn growers, and a 19th century petition.

The Ireland, Royal Hibernian Military School History is available.

And there’s some new Ireland military records from memorial inscriptions, army lists from the 19th and 17th centuries as well as two volumes of popular novels written by Charles Lever.

There have been some things added to the Dublin Registers & Records collection. They include school registers, district & street censuses, business directories & monumental inscriptions.

Over 1.7 million new articles have been added to the Irish Newspapers collection. Most articles have been added to The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times.

There are some new New Zealand collections. The following have been added:

– New Zealand Wars, officers and men killed 1860-1870. This collection contains information about those who were killed in action while fighting in the Maori Wars.

– New Zealand, military pensions 1900 – 1902

PERSI (the PERiodical Source Index) has new additions covering the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Boston, Illinois, Maryland, Louisiana, the Huguenot Society of Pennsylvania & Confederate veterans.

Also added to PERSI are all the Genealogical Society of Ireland journals dating from 1992 to 2016.There are plans to added more of the society’s publications in the coming weeks.

There’s a new collection that contains records for military personnel who served overseas with the United States’ Naval Group China during World War II. The collection is called Duty Locations, Naval Group China, World War II, 1942 – 1945.

The United States, Transatlantic Migration Indexes contains indexes to find out if your ancestors crossed the Atlantic from England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, or France between the late 1500s and early 1900s.

The United States, Early American Families Indexes is for 24 publications that have details about the early settlers of America.

Another index is for the United States, Early American Vital Records Index. This is for the 1600s to the early 1900s.

The 1840 U.S. Census for Revolutionary War veterans can be found at Findmypast.

The Barbour collection indexes can be found at Findmypast. The Barbour collection is all about Connecticut early town records.

More records have been added to the United States Marriages collection at Findmypast. The new additions come from Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Rhode Island.

Other records for the United States that have been added include, West Virginia births and Utah divorces.

HeinOnline

Something called HeinOnline, a distributor of law and law-related periodicals, has made its collection of “Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law” free. This is the first time the company has released a new collection that is free.

This collection contains all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and materials on free African-Americans before 1870.

The collection contains more than 1,000 titles and nearly 850,000 pages. There are books, pamphlets, all reported state and federal cases on slavery, and every statute passed by every state and colony as well as federal statutes.

The Hein Company does not want to profit from the sale of a collection about slavery due to the crisis around race relations in America. They hope this collection will make a positive impact during this troubling time.

Kentucky Colored Marriages

The Special Collections Research Center at University of Kentucky Libraries and the Fayette County Clerk’s Office has placed online indexes to Colored Marriages dated 1866-1882 and 1958-1968.

The indexes contain the name of each bride and groom and the page number of actual marriage held at the Fayette County Clerk’s Office. These indexes are freely available at the University of Kentucky’s website for its digital library.

Photographs of San Antonio, Texas

Almost 1,000 photographs have been placed online about San Antonio, Texas, from the mid-1910s through 1930. Most of these photographs were taken by E. O. Goldbeck a San Antonio-based commercial photographer.

The photographs document the period of rapid growth and prosperity in the area. There are images of construction of new housing subdivisions and railroad depots. There are early images of auto dealerships and people with their cars.

Rhode Island Photograph Collection

Providence Public Library has launched the Rhode Island Photograph Collection. There are more than 6,500 photographs of people, places and events from across the state from the mid-19th century through the 20th century.

All images are in a high resolution and they are free to download. You can search by keyword, date, geographic area and more. You can also browse by collection or all the items.

Troop Returns

Some other records have come online for North Carolina. They are called the Troop Returns and they are militia records mostly related to the Revolutionary War. The records include lists, returns, records of prisoners, and records of draftees.

You can find these records at the North Carolina Digital Collections website. This digital collection is a work in progress and more items will be added to it as they become available.

Newspapers from Stephenville, Texas

Old newspapers from Stephenville, Texas are going to be digitized. The newspapers are the Stephenville Empire and Stephenville Tribune. The years from 1882 to 1992 will be digitized and they will be made available for free at texashistory.unt.edu, the Portal for Texas History.

TheGenealogist Adds United States Records

TheGenealogist, a subscription service in the UK, has added lots of new United States records to its collections. They have added the US Social Security Death Index which is freely available at other sites. By adding it to TheGenealogist, it will make it easier for those searching for their American ancestors.

They have also added the entire 1940 US Census to its online collections. This also can be found elsewhere online for free. TheGenealogists data team discovered that a number of census returns had not been transcribed on other sites and these are found at TheGenealogist. Each entry is fully searchable by name and street. Where available the entry is linked to copies of the original enumeration maps to see where the people in the census lived.

Another collection that has been added is more than 600,000 Irish immigration records for those who arrived at the Port of New York between 1846 and 1851.

London Jews in the First World War

There’s a new website called “We Were There Too: London Jews in the First World War.” The site is where people can upload photographs, letters, diaries, and more to contribute to the database on London’s Jewish history from 1914 – 1918.

The project hopes that Jewish schools and youth organizations will encourage children to record their own family stories about soldiers in their families as well the elderly before their memories are lost.

GRO Searchable Index

The General Register Office for England and Wales now has a searchable index on their website for births (1837-1915) and deaths (1837-1957). No index for marriages. You will need to register for a free account to use the indexes.

You search by name, gender, and then by year. You can search for the exact year, plus or minus one year, or plus or minus two years. That means you can search at most over 5 years.

The mother’s maiden name appears in the index for births which will help to find all children a woman had.

For all deaths, the age of death is displayed. Previously that was only available on an index after 1866.

A list of matches will be displayed with a link to order the certificate. Certificates cost £9.25 or $11.58 and will be mailed to you. There will a trial starting on Wednesday, November 9th, where you will be able to purchase an uncertified PDF copy for £6 or $7.50. The trial will last for three weeks or until 45,000 PDFs have been purchased.

LAC Update on Canadian Expeditionary Force Personnel Service Files

The Library and Archives Canada continues to digitize the Canadian Expeditionary Force Personnel Service Files. These are service files for soldiers of the First World War. They are digitizing the files basically in alphabetical order and they are up to the surname Mahony.

At the rate the files are being digitized, LAC will complete this effort by August 2018 according to John D. Reid who writes the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.

New Database at LAC

The Library and Archives Canada has updated the database for “Service Files of the First World War, 1914-1918 – CEF.” The new database is called “Personnel Records of the First World War.” It provides access to the service files of members of Canadian Expeditionary Force and eventually records for other First World War personnel.

The new database will include the following groups:
Canadian Expeditionary Force
Imperial War Service Gratuities recipients
Non-Permanent Active Militia
Rejected CEF volunteers
Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Forestry Corps

Updates from the Drouin Genealogical Institute

The Drouin Genealogical Institute has added over 20,000 records to the LaFrance Collection for 1850 – 1861. This collection has birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial records in “The French America” since the beginning of European settlements. You can search by individual, by couple, or by place. The results link to scanned images of the original documents.

This is subscription site that costs $100 per year to access.

The Drouin Genealogical Institute will be issuing a bimonthly newsletter on their Facebook page and through their mailing lists. The newsletter is meant to keep everyone informed about the development and maintenance of the Drouin Institute and its websites which include Genealogy Quebec and the PRDH. Both these sites are used for searching for Quebec ancestors and their families.

Some other recent updates include corrections to LaFrance and PRDH files, adjustments to name standardization dictionary and corrections on the PRDH’s genealogical links for constructing families.

National Library and the National Archives of Ireland Receive More Funding

In Ireland, the National Library and the National Archives have both received additional funding for 2017. It amounts to almost a 20% increase in funding.

Some of this money will go to digitizing key material for the Decade of Centenaries which commemorates events in Irish history that took place between 1912 in 1922. The year 2022 will be the anniversary of the destruction of the public record office of Ireland.

Wilson’s Dublin Directory

The Irish Genealogical Research Society has a database of the Merchants and Traders listed in Wilson’s Dublin Directory which was published in 1803. The database is free and you can search by name, occupation, or street address.

Each entry is linked to a map from the statistical survey of the County Dublin in 1802.

The database is free to access and can be found at irishancestors.ie. It’s called the Dublin Directory, 1803.

Internment camp at Frongoch, Merionethshire, Wales

The Digital Repository of Ireland has a project called Inspiring Ireland. They have announced a new digital cultural heritage project that marks the centenary of the internment camp at Frongoch, Merionethshire, Wales. This camp held approximately 1800 Irish prisoners following the 1916 rising.

The project is called Frongoch and 1916: Recreating a Lost Landscape and it is a collaboration between the Digital Repository of Ireland, National Museum of Ireland, National Library of Ireland, National Museum Wales and National Library Wales.

The Irish prisoners, their Welsh guards and local townspeople created a kinship during this short imprisonment time when the camp existed.

There will be public memorabilia collection days in Dublin, London and New York where people can bring items from their private collections to be digitized.

The first exhibitions for this new project should become available on the Inspiring Ireland website sometime in December.

Irish Historic Towns Atlas

The Irish Historic Towns Atlas project will be released online for free in the coming months. The maps will be word searchable and fully accessible online or available to download.

The Irish Historic Towns Atlas is a research project of the Royal Irish Academy. The maps examine the topographical development of each town over the years. They can reveal details about the physical environment and community people lived in.

Ireland Registration Districts

Genealogist Shane Wilson has a website at swilson.info. It contains many useful tools for those searching for their Irish ancestors. There is a new widget on the site that maps registration districts across Ireland.

You can view a Google map of registration districts and easily see the neighboring districts to broaden your search into those areas.

University of Sydney Newspaper

The University of Sydney in Australia has launched a digital archive of its newspaper called Honi Soit. The archive provides access to newspaper issues that date back as far as 1929 until 1990. Each issue is a PDF file that can be viewed online or downloaded.

The articles provide a snapshot of Australia’s social and political history and offer unique insights before many issues became part of the mainstream news agenda.

The archive is browsable by year and plans are to develop a search capability across the entire archive.

Meyers Gazetteer

Meyers Gazetteer of the German Empire, also known as Myers Orts, is used to locate place names before World War I. You can find digital copies of the gazetteer at Family Search and HathiTrust.

The Gazetteer is written in the German language using old German script with many abbreviations which makes it difficult to use.

Ancestry has a copy of it and it’s searchable. But now there’s a new website where you can search it and if there is latitude and longitude data available a historical map can be displayed. The map can be a current version of the area using Google maps and then you can overly the historical map using buttons to decrease and increase the level of transparency.

The site is found at meyersgaz.org.

You can search using wildcards and a list of place names is listed for you to select one. The original page from the Gazetteer is shown along with the information translated to English.

You can add your email address for places so others who are searching the same area may contact you.

Gen-Fed Scholarship

Applications are being accepted for a scholarship to attend the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed). The scholarship is awarded to an experienced researcher holding either a paid or volunteer position in the genealogical community.

To apply you fill out a form with some information about yourself, where you work, any genealogy related courses that you have attended, and any conferences that you have attended. You also need to describe your experience with genealogical research and explain how attending the Institute will benefit you.

LeVar Burton Keynote Speaker at RootsTech

LeVar Burton will be the keynote speaker at RootsTech on Friday, February 10.

LeVar Burton started his career playing Kunta Kinte in ABC’s 1977 television series Roots. He was the executive producer of Reading Rainbow, a children’s program that ran on PBS. Burton won 12 Emmy awards as the producer and host of the show.

He also appeared in Star Trek, written books, and is an advocate for literature in education.

Buddy Valastro Keynote Speaker at RootsTech

The popular Italian-American celebrity chef, Buddy Valastro, from the TLC series Cake Boss will be a keynote speaker at RootsTech on Saturday, February 17. He will share the story of how his strong family ties, roots, and traditions have shaped his life and business success.

He will also judge a local cake decorating contest hosted by RootsTech.

Family Discovery Day Speakers

Family Discovery Day will be held on Saturday February 11 and is free for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. RootsTech has announced that BYU football head coach Kalani Sitake, popular LDS youth speaker Hank Smith, and former NFL football player, now Philadelphia TV news anchor, Vai Sikahema will be some of the speakers on that day.

Illinois State Genealogical Society Webinars

Organizations have started to announce their 2017 plans for webinars and hangouts. The Illinois State Genealogical Society has announced their webinar lineup. They are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 9 PM Eastern. You can now register for the webinars scheduled for January through October. You will be able to register for the ones in November and December once they are in the one-year window.

Wednesday, November 16, 9PM Eastern
Southern California Genealogical Society Webinar
The Ancestor Deep-Dive: How You Can Find Out Everything There Possibly is to Know About Your Ancestor
presented by Tammy Heppshttp://www.scgsgenealogy.com/webinar/jes-index.html